. The Poet's Beat .

. The Poet's Beat .

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Once

Still, we artists keep un-healed those wounds that drip not only blood but gobs of creativity...


And now the black top road of fate where once we travelled down together,
divides us,
and we find ourselves on opposite sides,
in the margins of a different candor,
standing listlessly in the fine powder gravel,
 among the disfigured bereft bones of random animals,
dusty dandelions and ditch weeds at our ankles,
a faltering barbed wire fence and the rest of our lives behind us,

Shall we cross to the center and shake hands,
the soft skin of your child’s fingers,
your obsidian shark eyes watching me twist across that eternal yellow stripe,
as if our deal is concluded,
and the broken bond that eludes to other distant freedoms
does not represent the shattered remains inside my chest,
to turn and go about our way,
when that way was a shared path once,
where “once” is but a word uttered in echo to the cadence of a memory,

You were bent over piles of your own clothes,
laundry I later learned you loathed,
you said your name and I said mine but you swear I was looking away,
and for years you worked hard at readjusting that gaze,
where it strayed you waved your arms and bade it return,
we were wise guys,
we were lazy bums,
we were skinned and held each other’s entrails together,
you first gave love a voice when I wrecked your car,
I returned that holy affirmation much later after you had washed my hair enough,
small words,
but it was time,
and we were good for each other,

The road shimmers into indefinite distance in both directions,
fading at a horizon of unknown possibility,
and at another marked by the treads of our dancing shoes,
God, how I loved to kick around with you,
we were good for one another,
and no distance dampens that,
so don’t you dare say otherwise,
use some other beguiling and imaginative words to explain your outstretched hand,
if there must be a parting,
such origins would be fanciful,
and at best invalid,
because there is no truth in love,
there is only love,
the power of such a concept that which holds me still,
which roots me here,
unable to shake your hand,
smile sadly,
and disappear through the weeded ditch of my fractured life.

3.2011

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